In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  Lucifer Snuff charged into the clearing on Featherfall. Sweat gleamed on Snuff’s balding head, and sharp branches had tattered his black cape. He wore a new bear tooth around his neck. He laughed exultantly and kicked deep into his horse with his spurs. Featherfall sprang forward with redoubled speed, his eyes huge and red with fear. “Take care of the man, boys!” Snuff called out. “Keep him alive. My pets will deal with the girl.” He raised his sword, rode straight at Clovermead, and smashed the branch from her hands. The blade passed an inch in front of Clovermead’s eyes, and her torch guttered out in the snow.

  He could have killed me, Clovermead thought. He let me live.

  She hated Snuff more than ever for his contemptuous mercy.

  The bear tooth scratched her chest. Clovermead drew her wooden sword in her right hand and pulled the tooth from under her shirt with her left. She gasped at its charring heat.

  With her torch extinguished, the bears had regained their courage and now they boxed her in, growling, their teeth bared and their claws full out. Nuthoarder snapped at Clovermead. She fell backward and stumbled over the corpse of the first horseman. As she fell her hand jerked the tooth loose from the cord.

  The tooth twitched in midair and fell point-first into the bleeding corpse.

  The tooth glowed. Bloodred light filled the night. The bears looked confused, almost afraid. They stopped snarling and took a step back from Clovermead. The tooth . . . drank. The corpse whitened and withered, and the tooth glowed brighter and brighter, pulsing, a crimson heart in the darkness. At the other end of the clearing the soldier fighting Waxmelt flung his arm up against the glare and Waxmelt stabbed him in the leg. The soldier screamed and fell backward. Another soldier ran up to Waxmelt, and Waxmelt turned to face him.

  “So that’s where my tooth went to,” said Snuff, cackling. “The girlie picked it up! Thank you kindly, missy. I missed my old friend. You just give him back.” He held out his hand. He was sweating more than ever. For the first time Clovermead thought she saw fear in him. He snapped his pointed teeth at her. “Give it now, chit, or I’ll hurt you. I’m not allowed to kill you, but His Eminence won’t mind a few bruises on you. I won’t warn you again.”

  Clovermead scarcely heard him. Her eyes were pinned to the tooth’s red glow. Her fingers caressed the tooth’s slick enamel. She heard roaring inside her, a message, an invitation. Do this, the tooth whispered. Do this, and this, and this. She heard the dead horseman cry out. His death was in the tooth along with his blood, and the tooth was savoring his pain.

  “Go away,” Clovermead whispered to the bears. They took another step back. The tooth blazed brighter than ever. Clovermead laughed with the delight of power. She pulled the tooth from the horseman’s body and lifted it high in the air so that the red light filled the rocky hollow. She looked the bears straight in the face. “Go away, Rootswallow. Depart, Comblick. Never return, Nuthoarder. I command you all—leave me alone!”

  The bears obeyed her. We meant no harm, said Comblick, and she was cuffed by Rootswallow for her obvious, stupid lie. One tooth says come, another says go. We are dutiful. Tell Lord Ursus we followed every order. Don’t punish us, great mistress. They bowed their heads before the blazing red light, whined, and crept away.

  “Most impressive,” said Snuff. He clapped his hands, ironically and slowly. “You have blood-talent, girlie. Those three won’t stop running for a year. If you were a boy, I’d say you should be a bear-priest. You need to work on your control, though. Such a waste, Miss Clovermead. You’ve already used up that fool’s blood.”

  “Used up?” Clovermead asked, but the answer was in front of her. The bloodlight had faded. The tooth was small and dry and cold again, with just a tinge of brown on its tip.

  “All gone,” said Snuff. He idly whirled his sword and kicked Featherfall forward. “That game’s over. Give me my tooth.” He held out his hand. Clovermead looked for Waxmelt, but he was desperately fighting two soldiers at the far end of the clearing. The shadowy figure dashed out from behind a tree and heaved a clod of earth at one of the soldiers, who stumbled but did not fall down. Firelight silhouetted the figure, and now Clovermead could see that the figure was a man. The man turned, looked at Snuff standing by Clovermead, and slipped away from Waxmelt. He ran through the darkness toward Clovermead.

  Clovermead snarled and rapped Snuff’s knuckles with her sword. He cursed and jumped back. “All right, if that’s the way you want to play.” He leapt lightly from Featherfall’s back and landed catlike on flexed knees. He jabbed his sword toward Clovermead. His smile was an ugly, lopsided wound. “His Eminence will be very understanding about your injuries.”

  “I’ll kill you,” Clovermead growled. She swung at Snuff and he leapt back. “I’ll hack off your limbs, bear-priest. I’ll gnaw on your guts.” She lunged at his chest.

  Snuff easily parried her thrust. “What a vicious cub you are. Do you think you’re grown enough to hunt? You’re wrong, little one. Don’t bare your claws at your elders.” He slashed at Clovermead and she barely brought her wooden sword up in time. The metal dug half an inch into her sword, and the force of the blow nearly dislocated Clovermead’s arm. “Give up, girl.”

  “Never!” Clovermead yelled. She pulled her wooden sword from Snuff’s blade and leapt at him again. Her sword whirled madly and she swung at him with all her might. She grazed Snuff’s ribs and he grunted with pain. He snarled and fell back and parried desperately hard. She pressed her attack again—and was parried again. Now Snuff grinned. He stood his ground as Clovermead attacked. His sword flashed and flashed, and splinters of wood chipped off from her wooden blade. Clovermead’s lungs were on fire and her legs were lead and her arms were numb from the force of her attacks, but she would not stop fighting. She swung and swung, and once she raked the side of his head, but Snuff scarcely flinched. He fought on. His blade smashed hers until at last her blade snapped in her hands.

  “Teeth and claws, you do fight well!” said Snuff, nodding respectfully at her. He was breathing heavily. Then he raised his sword. “Will you give up now? Or do I have to knock you out first?”

  “I’ll claw your eyes out,” said Clovermead. She lifted up her hands against him. Snuff giggled and came toward her.

  A stone flew out of the darkness and hit Snuff in the stomach. Breathless, Snuff staggered back and grabbed his middle, his sword falling to the ground.

  “This way, Clo,” said Sorrel from his hiding place in the gully behind her. Snuff looked wildly around him and scrabbled for his sword. Still stunned, he caught at pebbles and dirt. “You must hurry!” Sorrel moaned anxiously as Clovermead gaped at the astonishing, impossibly present Tansyard. He threw another stone at Snuff. Snuff batted it aside. Clovermead saw her disarmed father surrounded by three horsemen. Two horsemen more were cantering toward her. I’ll kill one, she thought, and use his blood to call the bears. The bears will eat the rest of them.

  Above her the clouds parted. Moonlight shone on Clovermead from a waning crescent moon, and she sobbed in horror at what she was thinking. I’m sorry, Father, she thought, and weeping, she ran as fast as her aching lungs would permit to join Sorrel in the gully. I can’t rescue you that way. I can’t save you at all. I’m sorry.

  The clouds closed once more and the moonlight faded. Clovermead tied the bear tooth back on to her leather cord as she ran.

  “This ravine will take us all the way to the Pike,” Sorrel whispered. He wormed a hundred feet farther on into the darkness. Clovermead followed him close behind. No one else was pursuing them yet, so Sorrel stopped a second and smiled at Clovermead. “You fight well, Miss Clovermead—I have taught you skillfully, yes? As they say, you have come up to Snuff.” He chortled. “Say thank you to your heroic double rescuer, Miss Clovermead; be gracious to your bear stabber and Snuff startler, who is master of tossed stones and of air-slicing daggers!”

  “Thank you,” Clovermead replied mechanically. She looked backward. “My father—”

  “Wi
ll not be killed,” Sorrel said. He pressed his hand awkwardly to Clovermead’s shoulder. “You heard what Snuff said, did you not? I believe that monster and so should you. I am sorry. I tried to help your father in this ambush, with flung stones and earth, but I could not save both of you. We can think later what to do for Mr. Wickward. Now we must keep ourselves alive and unpunctured and free. Will you come with me?” Clovermead nodded reluctantly. A horseman halloed behind them and Sorrel blanched. “Did I attack an entire troop of the Mayor’s men? This was the most amazing folly. I shudder and I praise Our Lady in advance for keeping us alive—you hear, Sweet Lady? Miss Clovermead, follow me.”

  They bolted along a curving fissure just steep and narrow enough to prevent the horsemen from following them directly. It was fringed by trees that forced their pursuers to circle widely around. Snuff jumped after them into the gully, but he slipped on a rock while Clovermead and Sorrel raced ahead. They swayed around more curves. The commotion and light faded behind them.

  Brown Barley was waiting at a fir tree a few feet in from the Pike. “Good-bye, dear companion,” said Sorrel. Sadly he stroked Brown Barley’s face and loosed her from the trunk. “Off to Chandlefort you go. So they will learn that the Tansyard is alive but in trouble, and maybe they will send someone to help him out. Do not let those bearish murderers catch up with you, and you will rest yourself at home in your own dear stables and stall. Eh? Good-bye, good-bye.” He slapped Brown Barley’s rump. The horse neighed, reared, and galloped southward.

  Sorrel burrowed into the snow and brought out his backpack, a steel dagger, which he handed to Clovermead, and three pairs of skis. He sighed as he brought out the third pair. “I had also hoped to bring out Mr. Wickward. I am most sorry that your father is not here. You know how to ride skis?”

  “Of course,” said Clovermead. “There’s nothing but skis and sleighs in the Vale once winter’s settled in.” She slid the dagger into the scabbard where her wooden sword had lain, and smiled as she realized that she had a real weapon at last. Really, she ought to be knighted as a reward for her epic battle with Snuff. She quickly tied a pair of skis to her boots.

  “Most rapturous. Then can you show me how one uses these ridiculous devices?”

  “You don’t know how?” Clovermead asked, appalled.

  “Not very,” Sorrel said sheepishly. “The plan came to me before the skill. They will chase Brown Barley and her tracks, and we will slip-sloop-slide away west, into obscure hills, on these skis that the Snowchapel nuns assured me I would need to have, and they were most correct. But I did not practice on them more than an hour in my life, Miss Clovermead.”

  “Lady bless us,” Clovermead fervently prayed. “It isn’t hard, Sorrel.” She crouched and put his skis on for him. Then she was busy giving him instructions and helping him slide across the snowed-over cobblestones and gliding for the far trees before the horsemen came out onto the Pike. She told Sorrel how to make a smooth slide, how to turn to avoid trees, how to brake himself, and soon they were speeding through the darkness. The world grew silent behind them and the falling snow covered their faint tracks. Each passing mile lashed Clovermead’s heart as they fled farther and farther away from her abandoned father.

  Chapter Nine

  In the Mill

  Near dawn Clovermead and Sorrel found a deserted watermill while trying to ford an ice-coated stream. Rime covered its plank walls, but the frosty mill seemed summery to them after their night speeding through the snowstorm. They made beds of the chaff and flour that coated the floor, untied their skis, and fell asleep.

  Clovermead dreamed of Timothy Vale and buckwheat pancakes and mutton lunch and beating the laundry with Goody Weft. She dreamed of her father bringing a basket of apples to her room, she dreamed of him mopping the floor at Ladyrest, and she dreamed of him trussed up and slung over Featherfall’s back. Clovermead whimpered. She was afraid for her father and she was afraid for herself. She had never been so alone before, and she tried to dream of something else, anything else. Then she dreamed of an old granny bear walking in the moonlight, her fur mottled gray and white. The bear smiled at Clovermead and told her, Don’t worry, little one, it will all turn out for the best. Hush you, hush you, don’t cry. She sang a gentle, rumbling song to Clovermead till Clovermead’s fears drained from her and she woke with a smile.

  The sun shone through the roof. An arrow of light pierced through a crack in the timbers and fell on Clovermead’s face. “That was a nice dream,” said Clovermead, yawning. “I don’t see why it should cheer me up so much, but it does. It will all turn out for the best! Oh, I hope so.” She squinted at the sunbeams. “The sun is high. Are adventurers allowed to be late risers?” Clovermead looked over to Sorrel. He was still asleep, smiling delicately as he dreamed. A light brown curl fell over his forehead. “And thus I discover that my rescuer is not as heroic as he claims,” said Clovermead sadly. “Heroes scowl ferociously in their slumber. I consider myself to have been rescued under false pretenses.” She yawned and stretched, and her stomach rumbled. “I wonder if Sorrel can cook? I mean, anything more than fried horse steak and hoof pudding and mane-and-tail pie, and other such delights of Tansyard cuisine. Perhaps he has brought dried horse jerky with him for the journey south. I hesitate to take the risk.” Clovermead rose and poked around the mill. A pigeon fluttered away from her nest in the rafters. Clovermead climbed a ladder and looked in, but there were no eggs.

  “I am daunted, but I do not despair. Appetite will put an edge to my wits. Think, Clovermead! What would Sir Auroche do? Besides lament his hunger, that is.” Clovermead fell silent, pondering the wheres and wherefores of breakfast, and wondered ruefully if Waxmelt’s full meals had atrophied her ability to forage. Beneath the mill the cold stream slowly rippled, not yet completely frozen through.

  “Fish!” Clovermead exclaimed. She ran down to the mill cellar and found a net, loose planks on the floor, and an old weir underneath. Clovermead peered down at the water swirling in a muddy cul-de-sac at the stream’s edge. Silvery glimmers darted back and forth in the murky water. Clovermead waited till she saw five flickers beneath her, then swiftly lowered the weir gate.

  Clovermead dipped the net and came up with a wriggling foot-long trout. “I suppose I shouldn’t say so, little meal, but I feel most like unto a bear,” Clovermead said conversationally to the fish. “I wouldn’t say so at night, but I can’t feel so scared in broad daylight. Mind you, the comparison doesn’t exactly comfort me. Alas, alas, it should cheer you still less.” She cut the trout’s head off with her knife. The fish jerked once more and fell still. “I told you it was an ominous comparison, dear breakfast. Dear lunch and dinner, while we’re at it. Oh, oh, I’m sure that Sorrel is a growing boy who can’t be stopped from nibbling. He certainly liked Daddy’s stews back at Ladyrest. You won’t last us till tomorrow. Ah, little fish, the auguries are all so very dark. I prophesy massacre amongst your brethren. Woe, woe!” She dipped her net in twice more and came up with another trout and three perch.

  The smell of roasting fish woke Sorrel. His nose twitched and his eyes flew open. The Tansyard gazed delightedly at the spitted fish above the fire Clovermead had lit. He sat up, drew in his breath sharply, and smiled helplessly. “Clovermead, you must pinch me. I want to know that this paradisial scent is not a dream. You would not be cruel and deceive a poor Tansyard?”

  Clovermead giggled and pinched Sorrel hard. He yelped and swatted at her. Clovermead jumped out of range and handed him a bowl of river water. Catlike, Sorrel tasted it with the tip of his tongue first, then drank deeply. “Most delicious, Miss Clovermead. Fresh water and trout-taste were a delicacy of my youth. The first time I fed on them, I was a six-winter boy, or maybe seven-winter. In late summer we wandered on the north edge of the Tansy Steppes by those slopes of the Reliquaries where the mountain streams trickle into the grasslands. My father most bravely stumbled into the water, though he could not swim, and he seized a knee-high silver monster, a true flapper. Father
struggled greatly and defeated it, and that night we ate cream-soft trout—strange, tempting water-flesh on a steppe boy’s tongue. I have not had fish more than three times since.” Sorrel licked his lips. “How much can we eat? I finished the biscuit I brought from Snowchapel yesterday morning, and I was too busy tracking you to get new supplies. I am very hungry.”

  “We’ll split one fish,” Clovermead said. “The rest we save for later.” She cut into the shining scales with her knife and appraised the white flesh. “It’s ready,” she said, and prayed to Our Lady that she had remembered how long fish was supposed to roast.

  Clovermead took the spits off the fire and cut the first fish in two. Sorrel speared his half with his knife, bit into scales—and spat them out. “Egh,” he said, wrinkling his mouth. “I do not remember water-flesh so.”

  “You’re eating it all wrong, Sorrel,” said Clovermead. “Do it like this.” She scraped off the skin and scales and nibbled carefully around the bones.

  Sorrel imitated her cautiously, then smiled in delight. “Ah, yes! Fishy-flesh should be just so. Dear Lady, I am in raptures! Lovely, Miss Clovermead. You are a heavenly cook.”

  “Father’s much better than I am,” said Clovermead. She took a small bite. It wasn’t at all bad. Father would be proud of her when she saw him again and told him how well she had cooked on her own.

  If I see him again, thought Clovermead. The comfort of her dream had faded in the clear day, and she almost cried as the realization of Waxmelt’s absence sank into her. She ate the rest of the fish in silence. Sorrel saw the unhappiness take hold of her, and he also kept quiet while they ate.

  Clovermead swallowed the last bit of her fish and dropped the skeleton on the floor. Sorrel belched politely and licked his fingers. Clovermead turned to gaze steadily at her rescuer. He looked mild and sweet and harmless.